A Night at Home
by L. Emmist
Summary: A glimpse into Jake and Cassie's home, years from now . . . careful, don't irritate the wolves. (Updated/modified)


Author's Note - This is really more of an experimentation with what Jake and Cassie's family might have been like than a real story. Hence, I have no clue what direction it will take. It may not ever have a follow-up second chapter. We'll see.  
  
Author's Second Note - This story has been revised, due to some very helpful input. Thanks in particular to Oedipal Kat and RasberryGirl. Mostly, I've toned down Tobax and Tom, for those of you who were wondering.  
  
Disclaimer - The Animorphs were originally conceived by KA Applegate for her series "Animorphs" and should not be interpreted as belonging to me in any way shape or form. Now sit back, adjust your seat, dim the lights and enjoy the show.  
  
  
  
  
  
A NIGHT AT HOME  
  
  
  
  
  
My name is Freedom. Yup, that's right. You guessed it. My dad is Jake. *The* Jake. Jake, leader of the Animorphs, hero of Earth. Jake, voted into the presidency without even running. Jake, who refused the title, or anything to do with national leadership. Jake, with about nine hundred high schools and art galleries and monuments named after him and his friends.  
  
For all that, he still tosses a pretty good slugball.  
  
Obviously, my mom is Cassie. Yeah, the one who's pretty much single- handedly saving the bald eagle, humpback whale, the Bengal tiger, the gorilla, and the wolf. Cassie, who is the best and brightest spokesperson for all the Animorphs. I don't know how she did during the war, but she sure shone in the aftermath. Nobody will ever be able to forget her words after it had all ended. "Our green and glorious Earth has stood against the forces that sought to bring it to ruin. Now, as the sun rises over the rubble, we have to turn to healing, to building, to planting. We have to lay aside our differences, we have to touch each other. Remember, we're human. Now that the galaxy's a bigger place, we can't be divided by little borders anymore. Let's face the rising sun and smile," she had said. The speech was in every history book, framed in a thousand homes. It didn't end wars or world hunger, but it sure was a shining moment. My mom is Cassie, who's heading up the expedition to revive the dodo while running an insane household.  
  
Make no mistake, our house is a wacky place. I don't care what it says in Newsweek, Times, in the textbooks. My home is off the wall, ninety percent of the time. I mean, look at what you've got to begin with.  
  
We start with normal old me, the firstborn. Well, me and the rest of my litter. Who knew that the children of morph-capable people had a tendency to get their genes a little mixed up? Not the Andalite scientists, apparently.  
  
Mom's first three children were wolves. Morph-capable wolves. Sentient, morph-capable wolves. She even morphed wolf to take care of us for the first days of our infancy.  
  
My mom is cool like that.  
  
Originally, nobody believed it was possible that Mom really had a litter of wolves for her first children. They thought it was the stuff of tabloids, right up there with "Three headed Elvis clone weds space alien." Yet, if you think about it, the way a baby is designed has to do with the DNA that combines to create its genetic identity. Both Mom and Dad had wolf DNA floating around in their blood.  
  
The Andalite scientists were very interested when we were first born. They developed formulae and theorems why we weren't a huge, misshapen mishmash of different animals. They invented a postulate that only somewhat similar DNA could mingle. Therefore, whatever child you got would tend to be all one thing, whether that be wolf or Hork-Bajir or whatever.  
  
And for those who claim that a human having wolves is simply impossible, I might suggest that a human turning into a wolf is also "impossible." Yet.  
  
Okay, back to the subject at hand. My family.  
  
For the slow students, who've been living under a rock somewhere, I'm a large, gray wolf with a very small attitude. My sister, Rachel comes second, is darker than me, and smaller, with no attitude. Languid to the core, the family joke is how little she resembles her namesake, the famous Rachel of New York fashion and US Military fame. The last of the three musketeers, Marco, is bigger than either of us, and about as serious as a pup on morphine. We wonder if something didn't go wrong in his development. He still trips over his extra-large paws, still pulls the goofiest practical jokes in the known galaxy.  
  
Tobax is the fourth child, and is a mirror reflection of Aunt Rachel. We think that Rachel's DNA swimming around in Mom's blood somehow hogged the gene pool. She was named for both Tobias and Ax. Dad and Mom weren't sure they were going to have another child. But she's also a morphing genius. She outstrips the best 'estreens' on the Andalite homeworld. All of us get to go to any college we want for free, but Tobax has received twenty-three requests to come to various art and theater colleges for a salary she could live on. That's right, they want to pay her to come. She blows all of us away. When she concentrates, when she's fully warmed up, she can even break rules, and morph directly from one form to another, and overstay the two- hour limit just a little. She's an artist, so she's a little dreamy, but she managed to get the job of family pet, somehow.  
  
Tom is the youngest, and I know the boy will cause trouble someday. Fortunately, I'll be there to stop him. He's only thirteen, but he's a born troublemaker. Tom is . . . Tom. It's hard to say whether he'll end up a genius or in jail. And I still have trouble deciding whether I hate him or whether he's my favorite sibling. Tom can be just plain confusing, I'm afraid.  
  
Being part of our family makes for an interesting life, to say the least.  
  
I was dozing on the hearthrug. One of the many advantages in my life is our huge mansion. Since my mom and dad are the heroes of Earth, we live in what basically amounts to a palace, free of charge. It was winter, and I was thoroughly enjoying the feeling of the fire soaking into my fur. I was holding a vote with myself as to whether or not it was time to roll over when I heard the door bang open.  
  
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee're home! Marco exulted, bounding into the room and running in dizzying circles.  
  
Sometimes I have problems believing the guy is the same age as me. I mean, really. Give the hound a sedative.  
  
Hey, Marco. How was the show?   
  
"It was ethereal," sighed Tobax, drifting in. Tobax likes to use long, flowing words. She says it expresses the languid beauty of her soul. That means it's an artist thing. She's actually very funny that way. She often chooses the wrong word, and ends up saying something completely daft quite by accident. When she tries to be her most serious is generally when everybody around her is dying of laughter. "The fireworks were spectacular."  
  
Is your name Marco? I challenged her.  
  
"No."  
  
How was the show, Marco? I repeated.  
  
It was grrrrrrreat! he enthused. Marco has a habit of drawing out words when he's wound up. Right now, he couldn't have been any more wound up if he were a yo-yo before the championship yo-yo competitions.  
  
Rachel slunk in, licking her chops lazily.  
  
"Rachel, weren't the fireworks enthralling?" prompted Tobax.  
  
They were nice, she confirmed, dropping down next to me by the fire.  
  
Wow, I said. A 'nice' from Rachel is worth a wowee-zambulu from Marco.   
  
Worth a 'magically entrancing,' from Tobax, responded Marco, entering into the game.  
  
"Worth a 'exciting' from Freedom," announced Tobax.  
  
That's 'an' exciting, not 'a' exciting, I corrected. The circle had come back around to me. Worth a 'boring' from Tom. Speaking of which . . .   
  
He's talking to Mom and Dad, supplied Rachel. He's in trouble for decorating the picnic tables.   
  
I take it the decoration was permanent?   
  
And not too pretty, she sighed.  
  
"It was not artistically inspired," said Tobax, perched on the arm of a couch.  
  
Just then, Tom himself slouched in. "Hey," he grunted.  
  
Hey, I replied. He and I have kind of a special bond. It's halfway between a Javert-Jean Valjean and a partner-in-crime thing.  
  
Well, Tom's not the only one with an attitude.  
  
Mom and Dad came in next. I don't think I even need to explain them, except to say that they look like normal people. They don't really stand around pointing up at the stars dramatically or hugging wildlife.  
  
Well, actually, Mom does hug wildlife, but we're the wildlife she hugs.  
  
"Hi, Freedom," Mom said, giving me an affectionate scratch between the ears. "Have a good nap?"  
  
Terrific. Silence is an amazing thing. I haven't ever heard it before.   
  
Dad was pouring himself a glass of orange juice. Yeah, the great Jake drinks orange juice. Kinda funny, huh? He lifted the glass and pointed at me. "And you're not likely to ever again. Not in this house, anyway."  
  
As if to illustrate his point, Tobax lost her balance at that moment, toppled over, and sent a vase spinning to the ground, where it shattered into about five hundred pieces. I got wearily to my paws. Want me to clean that up? I asked Mom.  
  
"If you would," she said absently. Cleaning up broken things is my job. Always has been, for some reason.  
  
I morphed human. A long, long time ago, Dad and Mom had had each of the litter acquire part of them, so we all had a unique human form as well as our wolf bodies. As a human . . . actually, I don't know what I'm like as a human. I don't morph that much. Generally, just to take care of messes. I teetered to the broom closet on my silly human legs. Ax is right, two legs is just plain impractical. But hands, now, hands are useful things. It had taken me weeks of practice to figure out hands. Once I learned how to control them, though, I found them to be very helpful.  
  
Within minutes, the mess was gone. Conversation continued to swirl around me. Accidents and breakages are commonplace things in our house, and life never stops for them.  
  
"Who wants to eat what tonight?" Mom asked.  
  
"I'll eat whatever the litter is having," exclaimed Tom quickly. He said that because we generally eat raw meat. As the youngest, I think he wants to prove he's tough. I doubt he'd really eat anything raw.  
  
I winked at Rachel and Marco. Tonight, the litter requests lima beans and tofu.   
  
Tom groaned, protesting loudly.  
  
"How about steaks all around?" suggested Dad. "I have to coach the team at seven, but it's still early. I'll grill."  
  
"Sounds good," said Mom, smiling.  
  
"Who wants theirs how?"  
  
Raw, I said.  
  
Red, smiled Rachel  
  
And wrapped in barbed wire! cried Marco, seamlessly concluding the joke.  
  
"The color of a sunset," sighed Tobax, recovered from her fall.  
  
"One purple and orange steak coming up," grinned Dad.  
  
"Daddy! I meant red and pink!"  
  
"Can I get mine raw, too?" demanded Tom.  
  
"Nope," said Mom.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"It's not healthy for humans."  
  
"Aw," he said, and followed up with a ripe word I hope Marco didn't hear. In response, Dad gave Mom a look, and Mom escorted the protesting Tom out of the room. "What? What does that mean? I didn't know it was bad! Hey!"  
  
Dad arched an eyebrow, looking down the hallway after them. "Okay," he said. "Let's fire up the grill!" 


End file.
